Seventy-Two Virgins is a comic political novel, with similar appeal to Stephen Fry or Ben Elton, written by one of Britain's most popular politicians. It is Boris Johnson's first novel. To much fanfare, the American President is on an inaugural visit to the Houses of Parliament. Our hero, a hapless MP on a bicycle, gets caught up in the ferocious security arrangements. A stolen ambulance runs into trouble with the Westminster Parking Authorities. A man, born in Lebanon but going by the name of Jones, manages to persuade his way through the barriers. The best sharpshooter in the United States is enlisted and stationed on the roof of the building adjoining Westminster Hall. Henry VIII's tennis ball gets caught up in the melee. These disparate parts meet head-on - and the events are broadcast live on worldwide television.

Constitutional thought is currently dominated by heroic tales of the Founding Fathers — who built an Enlightenment machine that can tick-tock its way into the twenty-first century, with a little fine-tuning by the Supreme Court. However, according to Bruce Ackerman, the modern presidency is far more dangerous today than it was when Arthur Schlesinger published the Imperial Presidency in 1973. In this book, he explores how the interaction of changes in the party system, mass communications, the bureaucracy, and the military have made the modern presidency too powerful and a threat to liberal constitutionalism and democracy. Ackerman argues that the principles of constitutional legitimacy have been undermined by both political and legal factors. On the political level, by “government by emergency” and “government by public-opinion poll”; on the legal, by two rising institutions: The Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and the Office of the Presidential Counsel in the White House. Both institutions came out of the New Deal, but have gained prominence only in the last generation. Lastly, Ackerman kicks off a reform debate that aims to adapt the Founding ideal of checks-and-balances to twenty-first century realities. His aim is not to propose definitive solutions but to provoke a national debate on American democracy in its time of trouble.

Bruce Davidson describes the genesis of this project thus: " Esquire's editors sent me to Los Angeles, and when I landed at LA International Airport I noticed giant palm trees growing in the parking lot. I ordered a hamburger through a microphone speaker in a drive-in called Tiny Naylor's. The freeways were blank and brilliant, chromium-plated bumpers reflected the Pacific Ocean, but the air quality was said to be bad. People looking like mannequins seemed at peace on the Sunset Strip while others were euphoric as they watered the desert. I stood there ready with my Leica, aware of my shadow on the pavement. I walked up to strangers, framed, focused and in a split second of alienations and cynicism, pressed the shutter button. Suddenly I had an awakening that led me to another level of visual understanding. But in the end, for some unknown reasons, the editors rejected the pictures, and I had to return home with a big box of prints, put them in a drawer, and forgot all about the trip."

Gathers more than fifty stories from each period in the writer's career

"Wasserstein moves from the historical to the human dramas behind the headlines. He asks, and answers, the important questions that every financial watcher - and investor - needs to know. Are companies overpaying for their corporate acquisitions? What's the impact of the rise in Internet stock prices and the boom in IPOs? And, in assessing the big picture, Wasserstein makes a persuasive argument that the explosion of corporate alliances will have an effect as dramatic as the industrial revolution."--Jacket.

Presents an introduction to regional cuisine centered around ten major American cities, with representative recipes and information on local chefs, restaurants, and food markets, and short histories on dining traditions and favorite dishes.

The topical essays of Too Soon to Tell reveal Calvin Trillin at his barbed and irrepressible best. Dealing with matters of the family, he tells the tale of a couple who were at first pleased that their twenty-six-year-old son had finally moved out ("If Jeffrey's going to find himself, it would probably help for him to look somewhere other than his own room") and then realized that they had lost the ability to videotape. Grappling with educational issues, he discusses whether the presence of Michael Milken as a lecturer at the UCLA business school means that its religion department will get around to employing Jim Bakker ("Church Management 101: Imaginative Ideas in Religious Fund-Raising"). In the field of world affairs, he deals with the role of astrologers ("The planets are perfect for trading arms for hostages and saying you didn't") and whether the language laws in Quebec really require the hiring of a mime who doesn't speak French rather than a mime who doesn't speak English. Trillin's short takes send us back to life refreshed and delighted.

Facing her romantic prospects with skepticism after two disappointing relationships, successful DJ Berry Lambert, who believes bad things occur in threes, expects a rapid dissolution to her next love affair and is surprised by her attraction to an outspoken, commitment-minded rival.

"The poems in Carl Dennis's thirteenth collection are informed by an engagement with a world not fully accessible to the light of day, a world that can only be known with help from the imagination, whether we focus on ourselves, on people close at hand, or on the larger society. Only if we imagine alternatives to our present selves, Dennis suggests, can we begin to grasp who we are. Only if we imagine what is hidden from us about the lives of others can those lives begin to seem whole. Only if we can conceive of a social world different from the one we seem to inhabit can we begin to make sense of the country we call our own. To read these poems is to find ourselves invited into a dialogue between what is present and what is absent that proves surprising and enlarging"--

In Menachem's Seed , Carl Djerassi , world-renowned scientist and inventor of the birth-control pill, brings us a new novel that explores the human--and passionate--side of science. Melanie Laidlaw and Menachem Dvir meet at a series of international conferences where jet-setting scientists come together to discuss the global implications of their discoveries. Melanie runs a foundation that awards grants for innovations in reproductive technology; Menachem is an infertile nuclear engineer and a married man. Naturally, they fall in love. What follows is a story of sexual steam, stolen seed, and religious conversion--a very modern romance that hinges on a cutting-edge scientific breakthrough. As Melanie and Menachem discover, what science makes possible, only two hearts can make right.

"REMARKABLE . . . A WONDERFUL STORY." --The Boston Globe The father is a high-ranking Communist officer, a Jew who survived Stalin's purges. The son is a "refusenik," who risked his life and happiness to protest everything his father held dear. Now, Chaim Potok, beloved author of the award-winning novels The Chosen and My Name is Asher Lev, unfolds the gripping true story of a father, a son, and a conflict that spans Soviet history. Drawing on taped interviews and his harrowing visits to Russia, Potok traces the public and privates lives of the Slepak family: Their passions and ideologies, their struggles to reconcile their identities as Russians and as Jews, their willingness to fight--and die--for diametrically opposed political beliefs. "[A] vivid account . . . [Potok] brings a novelist's passion and eye for detail to a gripping story that possesses many of the elements of fiction--except that it's all too true." --San Francisco Chronicle

Industrialization and population explosion are contributing to an urban revolution in the developing countries of the world. Static social and economic conditions, frozen for hundreds of years, are rapidly being overturned. This book makes an important contribution to our understanding of various national programs and the efforts of international agencies directed toward achieving land reform and adequate housing. This is the first book on the subject. Charles Abrams, drawing heavily on his rich store of intimate practical experience, dramatically describes housing situations in Ghana, Turkey, Pakistan, the Philippines, Nigeria, Japan, Singapore, India, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Jamaica, Ireland, Barbados, and Bolivia. His expert knowledge of the legal and financial aspects of land and housing problems is tempered by common sense observation of technical and social aspects, enriched by imaginative human concern, and made effective by a high degree of political realism. Man's Struggle for Shelter will benefit a wide audience of readers. The urban and regional planner, the housing official, the land economist, and government policy planners, both here and abroad, will find this book extremely important.

A discovery deep inside the Great Sphinx of Egypt reveals a secret that will send Gabriel Hunt racing to the Greek island of Chios, and then on to a deadly confrontation atop Sri Lanka's ancient rock fortress of Sigiriya. Original.

'Religion, Democracy and Israeli Society' illuminates critical aspects in the study of religion and politics by focusing on religion and politics in one society; the state of Israel. It outlines the major issues involved in the study of religion and politics and then deals with the impact of political culture on religion and religion on political culture; the problems which religion raises for a democratic society and the need for religion to unify society; the problematics involved in attempting to operationalize the vision of a religious state; and the consequences of religious fundamentalism for the political system.

Critics in Britain are already raving about Charlotte Mendelson’s excoriatingly funny yet deeply humane novel about a glamorous London family that happens to be falling apart. The Rubins are the perfect family. They’re wonderfully happy and very glamorous. The mother, Claudia, is the ultimate Jewish a powerful rabbi known for her charm, brains, and determination. Now this dynastic Jewish family is getting ready to marry off the perfect eldest son. History, community, and even gastronomy unite the guests lucky enough to attend this joyous occasion. But when the groom -- one minute before exchanging vows -- bolts with the wrong woman, the myths that have defined this family take on darker overtones. Mendelson’s astonishing eye for detail, as well as her just-right balance of plot and character, makes the unfolding of this story an uncommon treat. In a marvelously compressed style that also bursts with life, she reveals how all four adult Rubin children, and their parents, struggle with huge secrets, sexual frustration and sexual experimentation, and many betrayals. Charlotte Mendelson opens a window on a realm rarely explored in British the complicated world of English Jewry. But to watch this seemingly blessed family drastically, disastrously fall apart before regaining balance is to understand that their struggles -- like all of ours -- are universal ones.

The Parthenon Marbles (formerly known as the Elgin Marbles), designed and executed by Pheidias to adorn the Parthenon, are perhaps the greatest of all classical sculptures. In 1801, Lord Elgin, then ambassador to the Turkish government, had chunks of the frieze sawn off and shipped to England, where they were subsequently seized by Parliament and sold to the British Museum to help pay off Elgin's debts. This scandal, exacerbated by the inept handling of the sculptures by their self-appointed guardians, remains unresolved to this day. In his fierce, eloquent account of a shameful piece of British imperial history, Christopher Hitchens makes the moral, artistic, legal and political case for re-unifying the Parthenon frieze in Athens. The opening of the New Acropolis Museum emphatically trumps the British Museum's long-standing (if always questionable) objection that there is nowhere in Athens to house the Parthenon Marbles. With contributions by Nadine Gordimer and Professor Charalambos Bouras, The Parthenon Marbles will surely end all arguments about where these great treasures belong, and help bring a two-centuries-old disgrace to a just conclusion.

"We are on our way to Le Havre. The train is going so fast that the landscape is all but a blur. From time to time, I can see a farm in the mist surrounded by a sea of green fields. I am excited but also scared. It is 1955, and we are on our way to New York." So begins the marvelous journey of Colette Rossant, just married to an American architect and about to leave France for a new life in the heart of New York City. At first, Colette finds Americans' manners to be as mystifying as their cuisine, but before long, she discovers the myriad charms of her adopted country. Between taking on an astoundingly diverse series of jobs, raising four children, and renovating a Soho town house, Colette develops her own flair for food -- and for superb food writing. In this spirited and deliciously entertaining memoir, Colette shares the unforgettable stories of her forty tumultuous years at the heart of American and international cuisine. The children's cooking school she starts for her daughter's friends turns into a starring role on a PBS television series. As New York magazine's "Underground Gourmet," she hails the city's staggering array of outstanding ethnic cuisine. Either with her husband and children, or on her own, she travels to Africa, China, Japan, and South America, exploring cuisine and culture around the globe. She rides camels through the Australian outback, barters lipstick for fresh vegetables in Tanzania, and is almost arrested as a spy by the Chinese secret police -- just because she is trying to eat like a local. Charming, indomitable, endlessly curious and adventurous, Colette Rossant inspires us to savor every meal -- and every day. With a wonderful array of mouth-watering recipes, The World in My Kitchen is an irresistible celebration of family, food, and life.